The vital data (birth, marriage, and death registers) from the
Jewish community of Mikulov - Nikolsburg is kept at the national archives, along
with that from all other former Jewish communities in the Czech Republic.
These records can be viewed online, or in person at the archives in Prague.

Many of the Jewish records from Nikolsburg/Mikulov were lost or destroyed
in the few months following the annexation by Nazi Germany in
September 1938 of the “Sudetenland”. The same applies to
other Jewish communities in the former Sudetenland. In the rest of
Moravia and Bohemia, which was invaded and placed under a German
“protectorate” in March 1939, the Nazi authorities took
greater care about preserving Jewish historical items, including
registers of vital data.
What survives of
the vital data for Nikolsburg is patchy. In the National Archives in
Prague, the registers of vital data date from 1849, at the earliest,
to 1916 at the latest. There is also a short register of births,
deaths and marriages from between 1939 and 1949; this register only
states that no such vital events were recorded for those years.
The registers are
not the original ones. They are copies that were made by the Roman
Catholic authorities, as they were required to do by law. This is
also the case for the indexes, except for the index of the death
register, which is the original one. Below is an inventory
of the archives and indexes for Mikulov.

Inventory of registers

Note: In the Czech-language index of material, the letter N denotes births;
O denotes marriages; and Z denotes deaths. The numbers of the
registers and indexes for Mikulov (and most Jewish vital records) all
begin with the prefix HBMa:

# of Register

Description

HBMa 1222

Births (N) 1850–1873

HBMa 1223

Births (N) 1874–1916

HBMa 1224

Marriages (O) 1849–1873

HBMa 1225

Marriages (O) 1874–1916

HBMa 1226

Deaths (Z) 1850–1873

HBMa 1227

Births, marriages, deaths (NOZ) 1939–1949 (empty)

# of Index

Description

Corresponding
register

HBMa 1228

Births
(N) 1850–1873

HBMa
1222

HBMa 1229 *

Births
(N) 1874–1916

*

HBMa 1230

Births
(N) 1874–1916

HBMa
1223

HBMa 1231

Marriages
(O) 1849–1873

HBMa
1224

HBMa 1232

Marriages
(O) 1874–1916

HBMa
1225

HBMa 1233 *

Deaths
(Z) 1848–1873

*

HBMa 1234

Deaths
(Z) 1850–1873

HBMa
1226

HBMa 1235

Deaths
(Z) 1874–1916

<lost>

*These
two indexes, nos. HBMa 1229 (births) and 1233 (deaths), refer to
birth and death registers (similar to but different from nos.
1223 and 1226, respectively) that have been lost. The page numbers
given in these indexes do not therefore correspond to the page
numbers in nos. 1223 and 1226. The indexes that do correspond exactly
to registers 1223 and 1226 are indexes 1230 and 1234 respectively.

Good quality digital images of the records held by the National Archive are
available for viewing online. This is the most convenient way for most people
to access these records. The website is in Czech, so English speakers may
find the following instructions helpful.

Click on the plus sign to the left of the words
ÚŘEDNÍ KNIHY (matriky a indexy).

Now you see an alphabetized list of towns. Scroll down to MIKULOV.

Click on the plus sign to the left of the town name.

You will see a list of registers, which matches the inventory above.
At the end of the list (before the next town) is the word indexy,
with a plus sign to the left.
If you click on that plus sign you will also see the index registers.

To view a specific register, click on the word REPRODUKCE
at the bottom of its description,
and you should get a new page with an image of the cover of the book.

You can page through the book by using the arrow buttons above the image,
or you can pick a specific page by clicking on one of the thumbnail images
below.

Use the controls at the bottom of the image to zoom and pan.
You can also pan by dragging the image, and zoom in by clicking on the image.

To save a copy of up to 20 pages of a register in a PDF file,
type either a single page number, a list of page numbers separated by commas
(e.g. 3,5,12),
or a range of page numbers separated by a dash (e.g. 15-25)
into the text box above the image (do not type RETURN or ENTER),
and click the words stáhnout PDF - strana.
The resolution of these files is quite good. However, you may be able
to save higher resolution images by using a program or built-in
command on your computer that captures screen images.

Some or all of these instructions may become out-of-date if the website used
by the National Archives is updated.

Accessing the Records in Person

The registers from the Jewish community of Nikolsburg/Mikulov are kept
along with those from other former Jewish communities in what is today
the Czech Republic. The staff of the archives generally allow to viewing
of microfilmed images of the records, in order to preserve the registers
themselves. They may permit access to the actual registers for some
reasons.
Dr Lenka Matušikova is in charge of the archival
research section. The staff in the study room (badatelna) can
provide an index, in Czech language, of all registers of Jewish vital
data held in the National Archives in Prague.
Those wishing to
consult the archives should contact Dr Matušikova well in
advance, using the e-mail, fax or postal address given above, to let
her know that one would like to come to consult archival material,
and giving an indication of what material one is interested in. The
archives have sometimes been closed for weeks at a time, so it is
important to check. Dr Matušikova, who speaks good English, is
always prepared to provide help and guidance for those working in the
archives. If she is away, one of her colleagues will also help.

When
visiting the archives, bring a passport for identification. When
first arriving at the study room of the National Archives,
researchers will be asked to fill out a form with their details. They
can then request registers, by filling in a request slip, and the
microfilms are brought from the store rooms, usually within about
10–20 minutes.

The first records in the Museum Archive's holdings were made available online
in 2014, at the URL given above.
As of this writing, images of one register are available.
It is hoped that more resources will be available in the future.

The archival section moved in 2004 to the building of the former
synagogue of Smíchov, in the south-west of Prague. This
synagogue, originally opened in 1863, was used as a storeroom for
Jewish items during the Nazi occupation. In the 1990s, it was
renovated. The archival material of the Jewish Museum, much of which
had been previously kept in a store house outside Prague, was moved
into the mainbuilding of the former synagogue. There is a study room
for researchers. Requested material is brought by Dr Hamačková,
head of the archives in the Jewish Museum, or her colleagues.

It
is important that anyone wanting to consult the archives in person should
contact Dr Hamačková beforehand, preferably by e-mail,
and also let her know what material will be required. Researchers
should bring their passports with them when they go to the study room
of the Jewish Museum archives.

On
arrival at the study room of the Jewish Museum archives in Smíchov,
researchers will be asked to complete a short form. Typewritten
indexes for Nikolsburg/Mikulov, as indeed for the former Jewish
communities of other towns in the present-day Czech Republic, can be
requested.

The
typed index – in Czech – for Mikulov (and various
surrounding villages) contains 28 pages, with 669 items listed.
However, the main documents for vital data information, the
registers, are contained in the first section of 11 items on the list
(knihy – books). [Many of
the remainder are old documents, recording contracts or other legal
matters.] Here are a few of the most noteworthy among the
first section, in order of general usefulness for genealogical research.
By far the most important of these for vital data
are numbers 7 and 8 on the index.
On the other hand, number 5 turns out to be a false lead of no value.

The
original vital data kept by the Jewish community in Nikolsburg went
back much further than the copies now surviving in the National
Archives. In an act of considerable foresight, Rabbi Moritz Levin
decided in 1913 to compile a complete index of the birth, marriage
and death registers up to that year. The index was further updated by
others in 1919, with new information added up to that year. This
massive tome, known as the “Familien-Register”
(F-R), and now rather worn with its spine coming off, has survived in
the Nikolsburg collection of the Jewish Museum archives.

The
first section of the F-R is the birth index, starting in 1767 and
providing first name, family name and year of birth, as well as
usually the names of the father and mother. The section containing
the marriage index starts in 1798 and gives first and family names of
the marriage partners and the year of the marriage. The final section
is the death index, which starts in 1798 and gives year of death and
age, and sometimes also the name of the father, mother or spouse, or
the profession. All the dates provided in the F-R are years, and not
the days or the months. The handwritten script is generally very
legible.

The
F-R is in effect a complete inventory of the register books that
still existed in 1913 for the vital data of the Nikolsburg Jewish
community. These books were as follows:

4 Birth Registers:

Volume I

1767–1798

Volume II

1798–1845

Volume III

1746–1868

Volume IV

1869
onwards

4 Death Registers:

Volume I

1798–mid
1842

Volume II

1842–1848

Volume III

1848–1872

Volume IV

1873
onwards

2 Marriage Registers:

Volume I

1798–1848

Volume II

1848
onwards

The F-R contains:

12529
births with 844 different family names7320 deaths with 668
different family names1940 marriages with 394 different family
names

Images of the entire F-R are available online at
http://collections.jewishmuseum.cz/index.php/Search/Index?search=Mikulov+Rejstřík.
The images are available on 11 webpages,
each with a link indicated by a thumbnail image and a caption beginning
Židovská náboženská obec Mikulov, Rejstřík (z roku 1913) k matrikám, NOZ 1762 - 1912.
The first page has images of the cover and introductory pages of the register.
Next are three pages containing the listings of births (narození)
divided into three alphabetical groupings,
three pages of deaths (zemřelí)
and three pages of marriages (oddaní),
divided similarly.
The eleventh page contains a list of rabbis.

The Seznam narozených
(Register of births – no. 7 from the Mikulov
index)

This
is a smaller bound volume, with handwritten entries, of births in
Nikolsburg from 1763 to 1847, with some gaps. It is the remnants of
original birth records kept in the Jewish community. The entries are
chronological, with full dates (including months and days) given. In
general, the names given are those of the child, of the father and
the mother. However, the order in which these three names are given
varies throughout the book. The volume as it exists at present may
have been put together from parts of separate books, or else from a
single book that fell apart, with sections being reinserted, but not
necessarily in the correct order. This is the sequence of pages.
These four sections are not marked as such as separate sections, but
follow on from one another without a break.

Section
1

January
1763 to April 1831

Female
births start being recorded some years later than male births.

Section
2

March
1844 to December 1847

Section
3

April
1832 to 2 March 1844

Section
4

January
1773 to July 1847

This
section covers a similar period to sections 1 and 2 taken
together, but it is considerably shorter than those two sections,
and the entries in it are distinct from those in sections 1 and
2.

There
is a gap between May 1831 and April 1832. Also, as the birth
registers for Mikulov in the National Archives begin only in 1850,
there is another gap in available detailed
birth data between August 1847 and the end of 1849. The
Familien-Register, however, should at least cover both those
gaps in indexed form.

The
records are in cursive German Gothic script. Depending on the
handwriting of the particular person recording the entries, some
parts are not so easy to decipher. This register can often be used
productively in conjunction with the Familien-Register.

These three books
are all entitled “Kniha obřizek, zlomek”
– circumcision books (excerpts).
Number 9 runs from 1805 to 1854; number 10 from 1849 to 1875; and
number 11 from 1866 to 1876. There is thus an overlap in the period
covered between nos. 9 and 10, and between nos. 10 and 11.

These
are all small books, with handwritten Hebrew entries in cursive
Hebrew script, recording circumcisions. However, the existing entries
represent only a fraction of all the circumcisions that must have
taken place in Nikolsburg. For some years, there are only two or
three entries. The information provided contains the date of
circumcision, the name of the child, his father’s name, and
sometimes other names, such as those of witnesses at the ceremony.
Some of the text consists of standard formulas, for wishing the child
to be healthy and successful. The years are recorded according to the
Jewish calendar, written in Hebrew characters. The days and months
are in some cases from the international calendar (for instance, “5
September”), but with both numbers and words written in Hebrew
characters.

The
Kniha familiantů (no. 5 from the Mikulov index – not what is seems)

This entry is
entitled “Kniha familiantů [Familianten
book] 1763–1864”. It looks enticing, as there are
no Familianten books known to survive for Nikolsburg. However,
on inspection, it is nothing of the sort. It apparently contains (or
contained) some material from Úsov, in northern Moravia. Its
pages, though, have been cut, and it is difficult to make anything at
all of the small amount of text that it contains. This book can be
safely ignored.

Provincial
Archives in Brno – Jewish Community records and early censuses

The
Provincial, or Regional, Archives for Southern Moravia are located in
Brno. Their holdings include several lists or censuses of the Jews of
Nikolsburg from the late 16th, 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
The earliest of these list only given names, often without even patrinomes,
and thus are very difficult to connect to any genealogical lines.
Surnames begin to appear, and quickly become the norm, in the mid- to late
17th century.
Transcriptions of several, perhaps all, of these censuses are available
through the “Projekt Bohemia, Moravia et Silesia Judaica”
at their website www.bmsj.eu.
Access to the transcripts requires a paid membership.
The website is available in Czech and German, and it includes a number of
other historical records from Nikolsburg which are of less general use
for genealogical research.
A few of the censuses are also transcribed, at least in part, in the article
by Bruno Mauritz Trapp in Hugo Gold's book on the Jewish Communities of Moravia.
Those names are included in this index;
the article is cited in our bibliography.
There are some discrepencies between these two secondary sources.
In particular, there is one census that Trapp lists for the year 1657,
while BMSJ attributes it to 1673.
We believe the BMSJ date to be correct, but have not confirmed this.

The archive holdings also include several records of the Nikolsburg Jewish
Community – the Grundbücher and Synagogensesselbuch.
The Grundbücher
seem to be mainly about sums of money people borrowed or owed, or
other contracts or obligations. The Synagogensesselbuch seems to be
people buying, or taking up seats that have become vacant, and sums
of money that had to be paid, or were given as donations. Neither
seems to be useful from the point of view of tracing family members,
but they may be useful for doing social historical research, if one
has a lot of time and is able easily to read the difficult (and often
cramped, or quickly written) script.

While
this archive might be a likely place to find older Jewish records
like the Familianten
Book (or Mannschaftsbuecher), that is unfortunately not the case.

Jewish
Community in Brno

In the possession
of the Brno Jewish Community is the Graveyard Register prepared by
the Nikolsburg Chevra Kadischa on the occasion of the 50th
anniversary of the rule of Emperor Franz Josef I, in 1898. The
register includes mostly family name, first name, grave number,
sometimes an alternative name or a Hebrew religious name, and for
deaths after 1880 ususally a date of death. It is unclear how
the register was compiled - whether from existing documents or
directly from the gravestone inscriptions or both.

The data from the
Nikolsburg graveyard register has been entered into a searchable
database available on the JewishGen Databases site.

These archives are
likely to hold census records from the last half of the 19th
century and the early
20th
century. This is not
confirmed by any researchers. If you can confirm or refute this,
please contact the owner
of this page. While this archive might be a likely place to find
older Jewish records like the
Familianten
Book (or Mannschaftsbuecher), that is unfortunately not the case.